Just How Big Will This Thing Be?

RUSH: A number of people, because I am the perceived expert, have sent me questions today. ‘Rush, what’s your prediction? How many House seats? How many Senate seats? Is it still 60 in the House and nine in the Senate or maybe is it 62? Do you really believe that it could be as high as 70?’ In fact, let me find a story here. John Podhoretz has at Commentary, the blog, ‘The Generic Shock — So Gallup’s final read on the 2010 elections features a generic advantage for Republicans of 15 percent, 55-40.’ Now, stick with me on this, folks, because, as I say a lot of people are starting to get a crisis of confidence today wondering if all of this talk about a massive sweep can really be true. So many people have asked me if all of this is a giant con job, if all of it is totally made up. People have asked me, ‘Rush, is it possible that every poll is a lie? Is it possible that every pundit’s assumption and prediction of a huge Republican sweep is a lie?’ People believe Democrats and the media have the power of a massive conspiracy, to create this image of a massive Republican sweep and at the end of the day Democrats hold the House and the Senate and the headlines tomorrow are: ‘What an Upset, Obama Pulled ‘Em Out of the Fire.’ People really have some fear this is going to happen.

That would be a major conspiracy. They would have to be co-opting Scott Rasmussen. They would have to be co-opting a number of Republican pundits to go along with this. But the very idea people believe that this is possible is a testament to just what people think the Democrat Party and the media complex is capable of and how dishonest and cheating they are. Quite illustrative, a teachable moment. Anyway, ‘The Generic Shock,’ Podhoretz talking about the final generic advantage. In fact, I think Gallup today, their actual final is Republicans up 19 in the generic ballot depending on turnout. ‘That’s been making people shake their heads in astonishment all day. Never before on election day have Republicans even led on the generic ballot (the question Gallup asks is whether the person polled will vote for a Republican or a Democrat).’ No names of candidates. That’s what is meant by generic. ‘In 1994, the best midterm for Republicans in our time, the final Gallup tally had the two parties tied.’ Now it’s Republicans plus 15. People say, ‘Can that be? Can that really be true?’

‘This is why people are saying something is happening here that has never happened before. The ‘poll of polls’ at Real Clear Politics, which averages out all reputable surveys, has the Republican advantage tonight at 8.7 points. Which means, even if you think Gallup is screwy, there’s still no way to avoid the conclusion that Democrats are in for a horrific day [today]. But wait. There’s more. The Gallup number today is 55-40 assuming a voter turnout of 45 percent nationally. It is assumed that the higher the turnout, the better the number is for Democrats owing to the Democratic edge in the number of registered voters.’ That’s the conventional wisdom. A few people have been asking me about that, too, because they’ve been hearing high turnout means Republicans sweeping because of the enthusiasm gap. Now, I’ve been saying, I don’t know. I know you think I’m the expert, but I don’t know. The 19% is the enthusiasm gap, I’m sorry, not the generic ballot. Nineteen percent is the enthusiasm poll by Gallup. It’s not a record, 2006 was for Democrats. Anyway, I don’t know this turnout stuff. I’m not clairvoyant, and I also know that the people that come up with these theories routinely lie for a living.

So the conventional wisdom is that there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, maybe, but we know that there are also more self-identified conservatives than there are liberals. I don’t know what the registered Democrat versus registered Republican advantage is right now. I don’t know if it’s plus two, plus three, plus four, but Podhoretz makes the point here, is that the higher the turnout, the better the number is for Democrats owing to the Democrats’ edge in the number of registered voters. Forty-five percent. ‘Except that the midterm in which more voters participated than any other in the past 28 years was 1994 — and in that year, turnout was 41.1 percent.’ Now, Gallup is polling at 45% turnout. The midterm with more voters participating than any other in the past 28 years was 1994, and that turnout was 41%. ‘This year, a voting expert named Michael McDonald thinks the number could be a record-breaking 41.3 percent,’ not 45, but 41.3. It was 41.1% in ’94. Sixty-three million registered Democrats, 47 million registered Republicans, 32 million registered independents. That’s USA Today. But that’s the number that serves to give life to the theory that the higher the turnout, the better it is for Democrats.

So, anyway, highest turnout, 28 years, 41.1% in 1994, voting expert named Michael McDonald thinks the number could be a record-breaking 41.3 percent.’ In other words, 59% will not vote. Now, keep that in mind when we’re talking about high turnout, massive turnout. If you have been led to believe that your polling place is gonna be crowded and you’re not gonna be able to get in and vote, you’re gonna be standing in line, that’s not the case here. We’re talking about midterm turnout, not presidential year turnout. We’re still talking about record turnout well below 50% of registered voters.

‘Think this through. An amazing number for turnout would be around 41 percent. Gallup is using a model predicting 45 percent turnout — that’s a differential of 10 percentage points. On other words, Gallup might be wildly overstating the size of tomorrow’s electorate. And what does this mean? It means that the Republican advantage of 15 points might be low. Might be very low. That the actual Republican advantage might be closer to 20 points,’ in the generic ballot because the turnout will be less. See, it follows mathematically. More registered Democrats than Republicans. So, less turnout statistically fewer Democrats turn out. When that happens, Democrats, of course, are in trouble.

Now, ‘The low end prediction by Gallup of the number of House seats Democrats will lose at a 45 percent turnout? 80 seats. (The best Democrats can hope for, according to Gallup, is 55.) But what if the turnout model is off significantly, as is likely? Could the Democrats actually be on track to lose 90 seats or more? Could the best they can hope for be a loss of 70? (Sean Trende, the impressive number-cruncher at Real Clear Politics, says the Gallup number translates into a Democratic loss of 98 seats),’ at a 41.3% turnout, not 45. ‘The problem with these percentage guesses is that the Republican advantage is not evenly distributed across the country; it might be close to 30 percent in the Southwest but only a point or two in the Northeast. Republicans can’t win many more than 90 seats because they don’t even have a sufficient number of candidates to do so. But — and this is the big but — numbers this large, should they hold, presage doom for Democrats in the Senate. A wave this large is unlikely to tilt any close race into Democratic hands.’ Why are they spending so much time and money in Delaware? Why? Why are they spending so much time? Why is Biden going to Vermont? That’s like the Soviets going to Moscow. Why?

‘A wave this large is unlikely to tilt any close race into Democratic hands. And it might mean a shocking Republican victory in a Senate race no one has even paid attention to (Oregon? Vermont?)’ And Biden was in Vermont yesterday and he only drew 200 people. ‘Meanwhile, the story that has barely been told over the past 20 years is this: American elections have become the greatest public dramas I can think of. Clinton and Perot and Bush in 1992. The Republican Revolution of 1994. The 36 Days of Florida in 2000. The Bush-Kerry seesaw in 2004.’ What was the Bush-Kerry seesaw? The Bush-Kerry seesaw was exit polls versus actual polls. ‘The Democratic surge in 2006. The Year of Obama, guest-starring the surprise rookie phenom Sarah Palin, in 2008. And now this. Anybody who thinks he knows what 2012 is going to look like is living in a fantasy world. Reality is much too twisty for us to have any sense where all this will go after [tonight.]’

And despite all this, how many of you really believe, even after this on-the-spot analysis with Gallup numbers and turnout, how many of you believe 70 seats? How many of you believe 90 seats in the House? How many of you believe such a wave that Christine O’Donnell wins Delaware, that we win the Senate in Vermont, that we win a Senate seat in Oregon, that Patty Murray goes down in Washington and Dino Rossi wins there, that we win the Obama seat in Illinois? I know the Illinois seat’s very, very possible, but if this wave as predicted occurs, if this many more Republicans show up than Democrats, then all this talk about the Democrats holding the Senate could be academic. Now, if you’re asking me, I don’t know. I live in Literalville. And I don’t know because the votes haven’t been counted. ‘Okay, Rush, okay, what do your instincts tell you?’ People want to know. My instincts tell me huge. My instincts tell me if the Democrats and the media are running around talking about ’94 and it won’t be that bad because they were shocked in ’94, but they’re not shocked at what’s gonna happen now. I think they will be shocked. I think they will be shocked. We will wait and see.

Dick Morris back on September 27th had a column at Dick Morris.com: ‘The Goal, 100 House Seats.’ I’m not gonna read the whole column here to you. He makes the case that it’s entirely possible. Morris believes that there are gonna be races won tonight that people aren’t even talking about, just like they’re not talking about the Arizona governor’s race ’cause it’s in the bag and the media doesn’t want to talk about that, that there will be other races that are gonna shock people, like Barney Frank losing. Morris thinks that things like this are entirely possible tonight. I simply wait and see. Now, there’s an article about Gallup being damn good at predicting midterm elections. It’s at Gallup.com: ‘Election Polls — Accuracy Record in Midterm Congressional Elections.’ We’ll get it up there for you to see at RushLimbaugh.com. It’s a chart, I can’t tell you about a chart here on the radio, but I’ll just tell you this. To sum up the article at this link, since 1950, Gallup has never been off by more than 1% on the final Republican-Democrat tally in midterm elections. They’ve never been off by more than 1%. So all this is possible. We can make it happen. We can run up the score.